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#OneTermTony – back to basics

While I’m not entirely in agreement with Ms Rollison’s opinion that Labor needs to return to its union roots – we should also, in my opinion, be focussing on those who are no longer employees but who, thanks to Howardism, are now “aspirational” subbies – we are, as ever, are grateful to Ms Rollison for permission to republish her latest piece.

As the dust settles on Abbott’s election victory, I can’t help but feel extremely optimistic about this country’s future. That might sound like an odd thing to say, having blogged for three years about the nightmare prospect of an Abbott government. Don’t get me wrong, I know as well as anybody that we’re in for some very scary policy shifts in the next three years. However, since Abbott, thankfully, doesn’t control the Senate, and Rupert Murdoch doesn’t control the Senate and Gina Rinehart doesn’t control the Senate, all the money in the world isn’t going to help any of these three people to strip back the progressive reforms that were successfully implemented by the Gillard/Rudd government, should the Senate majority choose not to support these changes.

Abbott is going to have to sell his new policies and Labor policy rollbacks to small independent parties who owe him nothing. He’s promised not to negotiate with independents and minor parties to win power. But what point is there being in power if he can’t get anything done? He’s promised every angry bogan in Australia that he’s going to ‘axe the Carbon Tax’, and presumably they expect him to now axe the Emissions Trading Scheme. He’s promised every angry bogan and Gina Rinehart that he will axe the Mining Tax, but will he be able to do this without a majority in the Senate? So I hope Abbott’s feeling pretty impotent right now. And worried. Come the next election, not even hot daughters and a Murdoch media campaign can hide the fact that the angry bogans haven’t been given what they’ve been promised.

But Abbott’s impotence isn’t the only reason for my optimism. I also think an Abbott government is going to give the Labor party, and all progressive voters, a golden opportunity to go back to basics, and to question what exactly it is that we want from a progressive government and how we can bring about change without hitting the same hurdles which have damaged progressive reform in the last decade. Here are the lessons we need to learn to get things back on track in time to comprehensively beat Abbott in 2016. Bring on the One Term Tony campaign!

Labor’s relationship with unions

The issue of industrial relations was practically absent from this year’s election, even though Abbott’s front bench will essentially mimic John Howard’s front bench, the creators of Work Choices. There is no doubt that Abbott, or his backers at least, have an industrial relations policy in the works, ready to spring on unsuspecting voters who seem completely comfortable voting for a party who refuse to tell them what they plan to do in government.

But my question for progressive voters is this – should we wait until Abbott threatens worker’s rights to rise up and fight like we did in 2007, or should we be shoring up worker’s rights constantly, with a Labor Party that works in alliance with the Labour Movement through strong, fair, effective unions?

The problem with a strong, successful union movement is that unions have become the victims of their own success. Workers no longer acknowledge they need union support, until the moment they need union support. Union membership is at an all time low, especially amongst a younger generation of voters who have benefited from and lived complacently with union negotiated rights from the very start of their working lives.

I think it’s time progressive voters start to have a frank discussion about the role of unions in Australia, the benefit of unions, the relationship between the Labour Movement and the Labor Party, and the importance of unions working with the Labor Party. I think we should talk about the role of unions in the executive branch of the party – is it possible for them to have a fair influence without controlling everything? This sounds like a huge can of worms, but what better time to open it than now?

Uniting to get what we want

Long time readers of my blog will have noticed my frustration throughout this election campaign with the failure of progressive Green voters to unite with Labor voters to defeat Abbott with a unified front. Many will no doubt argue that Labor had no intention of unifying with Greens either, which may be so. But when Greens are actively campaigning against Labor, it does make the prospect of a united front a little hard to envisage.

When I say that progressive voters need to go back to basics, I think it’s really important that Greens voters and Labor voters start to realise that we’re not each other’s enemy and that we should be able to work together to bring about progressive reform, to the benefit of all of us.

For instance, using the policy of the Mining Tax as an example, it would be helpful if Greens supporters could at least acknowledge that Labor was forced to engage in a huge battle with rich mining companies over this policy. In a perfect world, Labor would have preferred a mining tax that more resembled the one outlined in the Henry Review, however progressive reform is not implemented by flicking a switch. You can’t just say ‘here it is’ and expect the policy to succeed. So when the Greens base their entire policy platform and costings on the assumption that if they were in power, they would instantly be able to introduce a much higher rate of tax for mining companies, it does make Labor supporters a little wary of these ‘perfect world’ scenarios, which would, from Labor’s experience, not be possible without a huge fight by some of the most powerful, influential industries in the country. Whether it’s right or not that mining companies influence policies affecting them, it’s reality. Labor has to work within this reality. And so would Greens if they ever had a chance.

It should be obvious, but it obviously needs to be said, that it would be much more productive for all progressive voters to fight on the same side. It would be much more productive for us all if the Greens didn’t spend their entire lives bagging Labor as ‘not being left-wing enough’, while also ignoring the political reality of the battle required to pass progressive policy. Rather than the Greens leaving all the battles to Labor, I think we all need to go back to basics, and battle this out together. We need to acknowledge who the real enemy is, which is anything getting in the way of progressive policy, surely?

I acknowledge that there will always be times where Greens don’t agree with Labor about various policies. But if a Green is judging Labor against an unobtainable utopian outcome which would never be possible in Australia’s political reality, I don’t think Greens are either being fair to Labor, or helpful in furthering progressive reform. I think Greens need to grow up and learn that some progress is better than no progress, whether a policy is perfect or not. We all also need to learn that the only way we’ll get anywhere is fighting for progressive reform together. If that means Greens have to compromise and negotiate, they have three years to work out how to do this.

Communicating the right message

The mainstream media’s political reportage has been in a downward spiral from low quality, low integrity, to downright unethical and immoral in the last few years. Following Murdoch’s lead, it now appears to be completely acceptable for political journalists from a range of media organisations to be completely devoid of the ability to be balanced, fair, and objective in their scrutiny of the political choices faced by voters.

Abbott not only had a free pass throughout the entire election campaign by avoiding examination altogether, he was also able to get away with hiding his costings and policy details from voters until the very last days of election. Even when they were released, they were barely reported.

This isn’t just disappointing. This is a travesty and a huge embarrassment for Australia’s mainstream media. For Murdoch to gloat on Twitter after Abbott’s victory speech that other countries will follow Australia’s lead in moving to the right, just shows what a scary, megalomaniac, wannabe dictator we have controlling the vast majority of newspapers in Australia. Progressive voters should be incredibly concerned about this situation.

So what do we do? The first thing we should acknowledge is that angry bogans who have delivered Abbott his victory are not reading this blog post. They are much more likely to be Daily Telegraph readers than they are Twitter users. So how do we reach them? Labor needs to improve their communication skills. This means the communication carried out centrally by the party, and the communication skills of the individuals within the party. Labor members know exactly what the ALP stands for, but do angry bogans?
Since we know swing voters are not going to learn anything good about Labor by reading the newspaper or watching the nightly news, we need to find ways to communicate without relying on the mainstream media. When Labor has a chance to communicate with voters, whether it be individual MPs in interviews or via political advertising, Labor’s message needs to be strong and clear. And all the leadership infighting has to end right now. The party needs to go back to basics and remind voters why they need and rely on progressive reform to improve their lives. If Labor has learnt anything from the last 6 years it is that the electorate won’t automatically give them credit for popular policies – they need to learn how to sell these policies to get the political success they deserve for their hard work.

Progressive voters need to go back to basics to beat Abbott in 2016. I think we can do it. Who is up for the challenge?

591 thoughts on “#OneTermTony – back to basics”

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I think at this point maybe Bill out to withdraw or negotiate to be deputy. There would be a public outrage if Bowen was left acting Opposition Leader for the two months that this would take to sort. His name might not be quite as tarnished as Rudd’s, but it is still right up there as a traitor. He put his ambition to be Treasurer above the interests of the country and the government.

I’d join up to vote against Albo if this is some Rudd proxy fiddle. Notwithstanding that, I’m not overly keen on Shorten. It gets back to BK’s idea that Dreyfus-Albo might not be a bad ticket.

The ALP needs to rebuild its electoral base. As union membership is falling it can’t rely on unionists to back them in elections. It has to forge an alliance with groups who have a social justice platform, because the days are gone when Labor commanded more than 50% of the vote in its own right and it won’t happen again.

Labor’s support base look to the government to enact
– wage arbitration & working conditions protection,
– pension increases,
– health care when they become chronically sick, regardless of ability to pay
– free schooling

see David Horton at Independent Australia for a discussion of “progressive’ and ‘regressive’ political parties.
I also think that Labor under Prime Minister Gillard had a vision for Australia which her government worked toward enacting. So boys less testosterone and more vision to develop and conserve of our common wealth please

The Liberals have form for Inquisitions. In Queensland the incoming Nationals launched one into Mungana with the aim of smearing EG Theodore, former Queensland Premier and by then Commonwealth Treasurer under Scullin’s Labor government. It forced him to step aside at a crucial time while attempting to manage the economy. His Fiduciary Notes idea was like a pre-Keynesian method of stimulating the economy. As we now know, it would have worked. His successor as acting Treasurer, Joe Lyons was too cautious to risk it, and thengovenrment floundered along through the worst days. He was cleared and ultimately reinstated but too late to try anything helpful before facing the voters in a wipe-out in 1931.

After the Loans Affair was used against Whitlam to manufacture a supposed scandal that would justify blocking supply in 1975, Fraser swept to power in a landslide. A private prosecution was launched by one Danny Sankey, Charging Whitlam, Cairns, Connor and Murphy with ‘Conspiracy to deceive the Governor-General”. It was always a bullshit fishing expedition, but dragged out long before the courts, even reaching the High Court before being thrown out. In characteristic Liberal Party bastardry, Attorney-General Bob Ellicott stalled for a long time on whether the Crown would meet the costs (which since they were ministers of the Crown at the time seemed pretty basic). Eventually, somebody leaned on Ellicott to notify them that their costs would be covered. But the costs of that and the uncertainty and strain, as they have currently with Thomson and Slipper, took a toll on their health.

Rex Connor died very soon after. Murphy and Cairns lasted into the 80s. Only Gough survived into very old age.

That is another reason never to show any of these bastards mercy when you have them down. Rudd’s reaching out to them was an act of madness.

The ALP and Australia are very fortunate to have so many good and decent ALP Parliamentarians,even though they have lost many many good people have a look at the caliber of those still in Parliament.Just listening to Albo.
Now have a look at the Opposition. No Comparison is there?

Thanks, early’…if anyone was going to hear whispers from the “low-life”, it would be you….er..in your capacity as bookie/punter that is!!
No luck eh?….well, it’s a lonely life, that of the gambler…I take it you didn’t read that William Soroyan ; “Little Miss Universe” story?……it’s a caution it is!…..I reckon you’d enjoy it.

Well, after listening to Albo, I must say he comes across much better than Shorten. Btw, Albo mentioned someone in caucus tweeting to the media. If they find out who it was they should hand, draw and quarter the mongrel – it wouldn’t be Rudd would it, or one of his remaining cardinals.

You need to be a financial member of the ALP for two years before you can vote. You also need to be an active member and attend 3 (?) monthly meetings pa. I believe that the dues are $20 pa for pensioners, students & unemployed. I’d like to encourage the Pubbites who are not members to join, the progressive movement and Australia needs you!

I am perhaps being a bit cynical here, but I worry a little about Ian’s perceptiveness and his mistrust of Albo. Could it be that the rush to draft Albo, through a groundswell of membership votes is being used as a way of circumventing factional leaders’ numbers. We all know or guess, when it comes down to factional numbers, that the Right would have the numbers. Hence the drive through Facebook and to the members.

My suspicions are multiplied by the suggestion that Chief Cardinal Chris Bowen be acting Leader while all this is settled. I don’t want him anywhere near the centre of power. I don’t even want him as Treasury spokesman where Andrew Leigh would do a better job, anyway. I worry greatly that this is some sort of proxy for Rudd. As some insider said, he’s like the Terminator II – somehow he can regenerate himself even after he has been destroyed.

He’s a megalomaniac who should not be allowed any position within the Labor Party again.

I hate to drift into the realms of the philosopher, Early’…but as an old ‘penny-punter” from years ago (now ‘retired’), I found it curious that when one had a win on the horses, there was never a shortage of people who would happily join you in celebration!…if you loss, there was never a shortage of those who would condemn you for being a fool!
…people certainly are strange folk…

GD,
Albo was answering a question which I didn’t hear (typical ABC). He said wte “whomever was tweeting the media during the caucus meeting needs to stop” I can’t remember Albo’s exact words but apparently someone in caucus was tweeting to a journo about the goings on in caucus.

Like you, I am very suspicious about Rudd, Bowen having their grubby paws in anything to do with the Labor Party. I wouldn’t trust Bowen as far as I could kick him, but I would dearly love to be close enough to him to kick him up the kyber. Again, although I like Albo I worry about his friendship with Rudd and the fact that he stuck to him like glue after Gillard was overthrown.

I’m just a bit concerned since the behaviour of LNP governments to ALP oppositions lately has been absolutely disgusting. Kenneally in NSW had her premier pensions removed, the Labor opposition offices were kicked out of the Queensland parliament entirely, and in Victoria, the Liberal speaker just completely ignores anything Labor has to say and doesn’t even pretend to be impartial.

What the fark would the ABC have to bang on about if the didn’t have Labor leadershit, I mean there’s nothing to report over at Lib HQ other than we might have a war with Indonesia, the economic emergency & other such trifles.

mikehilliard,
Don’t you love the ABC bimbos waffling on about the Labor Party and this new process that they don’t understand? There they are saying Albo and Shorten have the same aims/thinking for the party and both say they will not tear each other apart so what’s the point? Looks like they’ll have to make up a fight between the two leadership contenders in order to get some gotcha headlines. Besides, if Labor succeed in getting their act together they’ll have nothing to report unless they turn their attention to the stuff-ups the abbott will make.

I didn’t much care for the idea of having to go through public process of electing the ‘Leader’. After hearing Albo today, I think it may work. It is making people feel like they have a say, if they are a member. Hopefully it will be a clean fight, unlike Blood Oaf and his mates, who fight really dirty. I like that the media don’t seem to be handling it very well. Who cares that no one is running the country. With a bit of luck it will stay that way till the next election.

By all means let Albanese and Shorten fight it out. I think that is good but it should be decided by the new caucus alone. I am just shaking my head in amazement that labor is going through a process that was not only approved by a previous caucus with no power to enact change but is going through a process not taken to national conference.

I believe it would have been better for caucus to vote and for the leader chosen to commit to taking reform to national conference and commit to full and transparent consultation.

Caucus will have a say, members will have a say but affiliated unions no say at all in a process not endorsed by national conference and therefore introduced without any change to the constitution of the party.

All on the whim of one man.

Who did Rudd consult before these changes were announced ? What process internally did he go through before these changers were announced ?

The answer to both questions is little or none !

I fail to see how that is democracy at work. I fail to see how that is in any way transparent or inclusive.

If there is to be change why not equal weight to caucus, members and unions as per the UK model ?

At the very least all options should be canvassed.

Affiliated unions represent over 1 million members and are the major financial backers of the party

I am sure there are many who will welcome these changes but to me to ignore the union movement through which the labor party came into existence is wrong.

This is not democracy.

I will wait and see how this plays out but I believe there will be consequences to come.

doyley m
The forces of darkness would dearly love to break the union involvement in the ALP. It was the basis of destroying the student unions, to cut off the ‘apprenticeships’ of future ALP leaders. it is why Abbott hated the left at university dedicated himself to destroying the student rep councils.

By involving the party membership in the election of the parliamentary leader it takes away the criticism that he/she is a “puppet” of the “faceless men” and is beholden to a faction to keep the position. IMO a big positive. I couldn’t care less what the media has to say about it. They cannot say that it is not democratic. Maybe they could criticise it, as some here do, simply because it was a Rudd idea. The Democrats used a similar system for years. Was it crtiicised ? No!
For the next three years let’s keep speculating what might have been under Julia, a remarkable woman, and put as much sh#t as we can on Rudd and anyone who associates with him. What a fantastic way of using the time to ensure a better future for ourselves and future generations.I can feel abstinence coming on.